Practical and Parochial Sermons (Classic Reprint)
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| Partner: | buecher.de |
| Hersteller: | Forgotten Books (Bradley, Charles) |
| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
Produktbeschreibung
Excerpt from Practical and Parochial Sermons Romans xiii.12. - "The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." It is once again Advent in the church, and the thoughts of most of us are naturally turning to the two great events the church is now contemplating - the first lowly appearance of our Lord in our nature at Bethlehem, and his coming again in his glorious majesty to judge the world. But there are a few among us, who, without forgetting these events, have other thoughts also in our minds. We have begun to-day a new year in our public service, and "How swiftly," we have said within ourselves, "do these years run round! How rapidly are they hurrying our mortal life to an end!" Now here in the text is a holy apostle speaking nearly the same language. Our thoughts, he tells us, are his own. He states a fact to us, which places death and eternity directly before us, and then he points out to us the conduct which becomes us in our near approach to them. I. Let us consider the fad he states - "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." It will strike you at once that, in his use of these terms, the apostle directly reverses the sense in which our Lord uses them. Referring to it as the season afforded him for accomplishing his appointed work, our Lord calls the present life day; "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work." But here the present life is called night, and the future, day. The explanation is easy - the Lord Jesus is contrasting the present scene with the stillness and darkness of the grave, while the apostle is looking on it in contrast with the bright heaven that lies beyond it. "The night" - it is a picture of the Christians present, state. In comparison with other men, he is in broad day; and so he is in comparison with his own former condition. "Ye were sometime darkness," says the apostle, "but now are ye light in the Lord." "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." But here the apostle is not thinking of other men, nor looking back to our own natural state: he is looking forward; he has a glorious eternity in view; and as he contemplates that, he feels that he and his fellow-believers are all still in darkness, that night with its shadows is still overspreading them. And the figure, in this application of it, comes home at once to our own experience and feelings. Is night a cheerless season? So are many of our present hours to us. Is it a season of incertitude and perplexity? So are often the seasons of this mortal life. Is it a period of comparative inactivity? a period wherein we find it impossible to do many things we wish to accomplish? Who is there, that does not feel his spiritual condition here to be the same? We cannot do the things that we would; we find ourselves "sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us." And is night a time of danger? We are never out of danger in this evil world. But it is our ignorance in this evil world, that this figure most forcibly represents. Night throws a veil over the face of things. The traveller sees nothing of the objects around him. He may be passing through the most beautiful scenes, but he might almost as well be going over a desert. Strain his eyes as he will, nature and its beauties are for the greater part hidden from him. So with us. What do we know here of the things we most wish to know? Of the things which, we are sure, would fill our hearts with admiration could we but discern them? About the Publisher
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